Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Feelings and focus
Being far apart is not the same as being out of touch. What usually stops contact is the question of who starts it, not the miles.
Distance turns into disconnection when both people wait for the other one. It helps to fix a when rather than promising to speak soon. The same evening each week, a voice note on the way home, a letter if that suits you better. Small and regular beats long and occasional, mostly because it takes the deciding out of it.
Qur’an and Sunnah
'We are closer to him than his jugular vein' (Quran 50:16). Nearness here is not a matter of distance, which is worth remembering about the people you love as well.
وَلَقَدۡ خَلَقۡنَا ٱلۡإِنسَٰنَ وَنَعۡلَمُ مَا تُوَسۡوِسُ بِهِۦ نَفۡسُهُۥۖ وَنَحۡنُ أَقۡرَبُ إِلَيۡهِ مِنۡ حَبۡلِ ٱلۡوَرِيدِ
We created man––We know what his soul whispers to him: We are closer to him than his jugular vein––
Qur’an 50:16read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A meta-analysis of 30 randomised trials with 2,294 participants tested whether writing about stressful experiences changes how much health care people go on to use. Writing has been studied more than most simple self help, and what is found in this area is modest, so think of a letter as a way of staying in contact rather than as a treatment.
Harris AH. (2006). Does expressive writing reduce health care utilization? A meta-analysis of randomized trials.. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Once contact has a set time it stops depending on somebody feeling up to arranging it.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
A small annoyance can be steered. A full blaze cannot. Nearly all of the winnable work happens in the first thirty seconds, before the feeling has finished arriving.
Self-restraint runs on a supply that stress uses up. In a week when everything is late and nothing has been slept on, you will react to things you would normally let go.
If you are permanently behind, short of sleep and scrambling, that is not the backdrop to your short fuse. A good deal of the time it is the cause of it.